Recently, causes of deaths from cancer of all causes of deaths have been continuously increased by one in four persons. As such, therapeutic methods of cancer occupying most of causes of deaths include surgery, radiotherapy, biotherapy, chemotherapy, and the like.
Among them, an anticancer agent used in the chemotherapy is introduced to the metabolic pathway of cancer cells and directly acts with DNA to interrupt replication, transcription, and translation of DNA or interfere with the synthesis of nucleic acid precursors and inhibit cell division and thus has cytotoxicity to the cells. Accordingly, since at the time of administration, the anticancer agent causes serious injury to normal cells and causes bone marrow hematopoiesis, immunosuppression, hair loss, diarrhea, gastrointestinal disorders, liver and kidney toxicity, and the like, researches for minimizing side effects of the anticancer agent and increasing therapeutic effects are urgently required.
The anticancer agents developed until now have a characteristic in which therapeutic and toxic effects are mostly overlapped because of no cancer-specific selectivity, and the occurrence of toxicity has relevance to whether the drug may be concentrated in the plasma. The toxicity due to administration of the anticancer agents has various side effects including hematocytopenia of white blood cells, platelets and red blood cells due to bone marrow injury, hair loss symptoms due to hair follicle cell destruction, menstrual irregularity due to side effects on ovaries, male infertility due to side effects on testicles, stomatitis due to side effects caused by mucosal cell destruction of the digestive tract, nausea-vomiting, swallowing disorders and digestive disorders, diarrhea symptoms, renal toxicity due to tubulorrhexis, peripheral neuritis and weakness caused by nervous system disorders, vascular disorders such as vascular pain and rash, skin and nail discoloration, and the like.
As the most common side effect caused by administration of the anticancer agents, nausea and vomiting are included. The degree of causing nausea and vomiting is various according to the anticancer agents, and nausea and vomiting caused by administrating cisplatin which is frequently used in kidney cancer and lung cancer are very serious, and in loss of appetite, the vomiting is easily caused and particularly, cisplatin has toxicity in kidneys and liver. Various antivomiting drugs are selected and combined according to clinical symptoms to be used before and after anticancer therapy and vomiting may be successfully adjusted by administration of various routes and times, but the quality of life is greatly deteriorated.
Ondansetron used for suppressing acute and delayed vomiting causes allergic reaction, irregular heartbeat, muscle cramps, and secondary side effects of being unable to move, metoclopramide has side effects including nervousness, dyspnea, insomnia, heart attack, and the like, and diazepam has side effects including bronchial pain, rash, hallucinations, and the like.
Further, for the purpose of mitigation of side effects of anticancer agents, increased efficacy of chemotherapy, increased survival rate of cancer patients, improved quality of life, and the like, various anticancer adjuvants are used, but also cause secondary side effects. Interferon, interleukin, and the like having excellent antitumor and immune enhancement are protein formulations and have a disadvantage that the price is expensive. Mesna™ used for preventing urine toxicity has side effects including nausea, vomiting, decreased appetite, gastrointestinal pain, diarrhea, fever, dizziness, and the like, and Aminfostine™ for free-radical cleaning cannot be continuously administrated before 24 hrs after being administrated because of antihypertensive action.